Is the demise of the Catholic Church being brought on by it's own clergy?

Question

The disclosure about gay and pedophile priests have left the Catholic churches in Europe empty according to a European nun at Pope John Paul's funeral. I know of two in my area have shut down due to lack of parishoners.

Answer 1

That's great

Answer 2

Yes, pope Paul VI mentioned in the 70's that the smoke of satan has entered into the church and is in a state of self-demolition. You really have to pray to Christ and His Mother to be able to discern a good priest from a bad one. Due to the sins of the world God is punishing mankind with many problems inside His own church, its men that can be evil. The church remains Holy.

Answer 3

The Catholic Church is alive and strong. While Church membership has dropped in Europe (all religions have lost members in Europe except for Islam) it has grown tremendously in Africa, South America, and Asia.

There are still 1.3 BILLION of us out there. I hardly think we're anywhere close to a demise of any sort.

Answer 4

According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, the worldwide population of Catholics is as large as it ever has been and is still growing:

1970 = 653,600,000
1975 = 709,600,000
1980 = 783,700,000
1985 = 852,000,000
1990 = 928,500,000
1995 = 989,400,000
2000 = 1,045,000,000
2004 = 1,114,000,000

With love in Christ.

Answer 5

That's one of the factors. The other is that they took in so many rites and rituals from other religions to try and get them to convert. That they have lost them selves in a tangled web of their own making. Also doing the same things that made Jesus mad outside of the one synagogue. That of monetary sacrifice this time rather than animal sacrifice.

Answer 6

Well I don't know. But I do believe the Catholic Church should be open to letting women become priests. Not saying they're wrong (I'm Catholic) but sometimes everyone has to know when its time to incoperate the present with the past.

Answer 7

Many churches are losing members. These first three articles, by Awake! correspondent in Italy, show that the Vatican itself, as well as many Catholic papers and commentators, is concerned. What reasons do they and others give for loss of church members?

THE Vatican is concerned. It issued a report last May entitled Sects or New Religious Movements: Pastoral Challenge. This document was the result of a study begun in 1984 by four Vatican departments to determine why so many Catholics are leaving the church.

Among the many reasons the Vatican gave for Catholics’ leaving the church were the following: ‘Concern over the future; the nature of truth and how it is to be found; the meaning of life; the lack of answers to their questions; feeling betrayed, deceived, exploited, not listened to; and disillusioned with Church laws and practices.’

It sounds like the condition of the crowds that flocked to Jesus: “They were harassed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matthew 9:36) The Vatican document admitted that there are “many deficiencies and inadequacies in the actual behaviour of the Church” and emphasized that “there is a vacuum crying out to be filled.” It also referred to the “lack of leadership, patience and personal commitment on the part of church leaders.”

Other sources list further reasons for the departures from the churches. The well-known Dutch Catholic theologian Johannes Baptist Metz made this statement: “Our Western religion is secularized to the bone. No trace of messianism has been left over in it. Rulership by God has vanished out of it. He does not figure anymore within the churches, within theology, nor within the social and political issues of our day.”

Commenting on the situation regarding young people in Spain, Concilium, an international theological magazine, said: “Youth and the church represent two totally separate worlds, far removed from each other.” This magazine mentions parallel situations in Holland, Belgium, Federal Republic of Germany, and Australia.

One press report referred to the papal document as “the Vatican’s cry of alarm.” The document suggests a ‘rethinking of the parish community approach.’ It should be ‘outgoing and witnessing.’ It observes that the sects go “out of their way to meet people where they are, warmly, personally, and directly, pulling the individual out of anonymity, promoting participation, spontaneity, responsibility, commitment.”

It calls for an “ongoing education in the faith” to combat the religious ignorance so widespread among members of the churches today. “The word of God,” the document declares, “should be rediscovered as an important community-building element,” and the preaching work should have a “biblical dimension.”

Turning from its self-examination, the document strikes an ominous note: “At times we may have to recognize, and even support, radical interventions on the part of the state acting in its own sphere.” (Italics ours.) This “invitation” to the State to step in to help in the war was not lost on the press. “Is the shadow of the ‘secular arm’ reappearing with regard to non-Catholic religions, and particularly with regard to the so-called ‘sects’?” asked Marco Tosatti in La Stampa of June 4, 1986.

Does this possible use of the government indicate that the Vatican wishes to return to its methods of the Dark and Middle Ages to suppress freedom of worship? Did Jesus ever request the help of political authorities to neutralize those who opposed his teachings? Did Peter ever do so? Did the other apostles ever do so? Was it not the Pharisees who appealed to Pilate in order to have Jesus impaled? Is requesting governmental help proof of spiritual strength, or is it an admission of weakness?

Not all Catholics leaving the church are joining another religion, but large numbers are flocking to one particular religious organization, one of the world's fastest growing religions- the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Answer 8

Maybe the Da Vinci Code had something to do with it! :)